I don’t use the Heil PR40, but my Shure SM7B has many of the same characteristics and benefits. The SM7B also has an internal shockmount and a big foam pop-filtering cover, so I can omit separate shockmounts and filters, which I especially love.1

Although I can’t universally recommend the SM7B without its big caveat: it needs a lot of clean gain (but so does the PR40), which many inexpensive XLR-to-USB interfaces can’t give without a lot of noise (underlying hiss). Most known-good cheap options have been discontinued — I got an Mbox Mini 3 on eBay for about $120, but it died in less than a year. The Blackjack works, but is noticeably noisy. I haven’t found a suitable SM7B USB interface cheaper than the $600 Apogee Duet that’s still made, has very low noise at high gain, and is likely to last a long time. (I didn’t even like the Duet’s software reliance, so I went all the way to the all-hardware but very expensive USBPre 2.)

The SM7B is legendary. Many claim Thriller was recorded on one — I don’t know if that’s verifiable, but I was happier to see that Robin Quivers uses one. ↩︎